Abstract: Photographs and pictorial publications, relating to Chinese Communist military activities in north China during the Sino-Japanese
War, and holograph biographical sketch of Sha fei and biographical data about him.

Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives

Languages:
Chinese

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research.

The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.

Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.

Biographical Note

Sha Fei (1912-50) was a Chinese journalist and photographer. Born in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, Sha joined the Nationalist
Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek in 1925, working as a military radio operator in Southwest China. He then left the
Kuomintang Army to become a professional photographer in the 1930s. In October 1937, Sha Fei joined the Chinese Communist
Red Army and became a journalist, editor, and photographer in the communist-governed Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region in
North China. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), Sha Fei became the chief editor of a communist-run pictorial magazine
in the region, taking hundreds of photographs of Chinese communist activities in wartime North China. After the war, while
continuing his photographic and editorial career in North China, Sha Fei became increasingly mentally unstable. In March 1950,
he shot his Japanese doctor to death and was convicted of murder. He was executed later that year, at the age of thirty-eight.
In the 1980s, Sha Fei was pardoned by the Chinese Communist Party.

Scope and Content of Collection

Sha Fei's personal papers include early communist publications from the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region, rarely seen photos
taken by Sha Fei during and after the Sino-Japanese war, an unpublished manuscript about Sha Fei's life by his wife, and communist
documents relating to Sha Fei's career and activities. These historic materials provide us with a rare glimpse into the early,
and relatively unknown, Chinese communist activities in North China, depicting how the Chinese Communists survived and operated
in a border region other than the famous one dominated by Mao Zedong: the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region in Northwest
China.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.